Time for a change of strategy

Its been an up and down week and a bit since I last posted. We have had a bit of cooler weather and a good blast of hot. The garden has taken another pounding so bits of it are looking decidedly sad. On the good side the blackberries are doing OK in the shade structure I built for them, we have had a couple of good picks with a lot more to come. These are destined for the trading post as we already have a good supply in the fridge.

The beans I planted outside the shade areas have been dealt to by the hot wind and are not looking too perky but I think they will pick up if we get a bit of cooler weather. Those in the shade house garden are fine. I have given up on the first corn crop and planted another lot with a bit of wind protection, I think we will get them through to maturity before it gets to cold. The first plants did produce a few cobs but definitely not the best corn I have seen. I will pull them out and get the ground ready for a few tomatoes I hope to carry into winter. Last winter we had tomato plants growing well right through the winter. The tomatoes we got off those plants at the end of winter where some of the ugliest looking things you would ever see but they had a taste you wouldn't believe. It was the first time we have had tomatoes survive a winter outside. They stayed happy and healthy right through with very little damage from the unusually light frosts we got. This year I will try them in a polytunnel and see if we can have them fruiting in the winter, we get enough light so if I can keep them warm it could be a winner.

Summer tomatoes have been almost a total failure this year, even the shade house ones have produced only a few small fruit. The hanging pots have kicked the bucket, another total failure. The pumpkins have suffered badly with only a few runners surviving. Today I pruned those back a bit and planted a few seedling pumpkins I had ready to go. I may have to work out some shelter for them to get them through the next month or so until it starts to cool a bit. Surprisingly some NZ yams I planted have made it through everything the summer has thrown at them. They are not a heat loving plant and usually turn their toes up if it gets over 35 degrees. I managed to get hold of a few seed yams last spring (even though they are rationed by most seed suppliers) and planted them in the shade house. As it warmed up I planted a row of dwarf beans on either side of them in the hope that cooling effect of the transpiration from the beans would help them. So far it's working and we may get a crop off them.

The Kumara are powering along under a rough shade cover and should provide us with a feed or two. The summer so far has been pretty tough and it looks like this is going to be the norm for the future. From here on it looks like we will have to start our summer crop at least a month early so they are well established by the time the heat gets at us. The shade cloth structures are going to be a permanent fixture around here, along with some wind breaks to keep the hot northerly winds from giving us the blast furnace treatment. It looks like we have to find new ways of doing stuff if we are to have any hope of an easy life on a Tough New Planet.

Read more...

More shady business and some Apricots

Last year along with almost everything else in the garden my blackberries and rhubarb copped a flogging from the heat. They are in a bad spot though. Being on the western side of the block, up against an iron fence they get the full force of the sun for the best part of the day, so it's to be expected they would suffer. Since I had a bit of poly pipe and some shade cloth left over from the veggie shade house, I have built another one to make sure my rhubarb and blackberry pies are up to scratch. The same construction method as before but as this is only a half hoop I made up some tube holders that have been welded to the top rail of the fence. The poly is simply screwed into them and forms the peak of the hoop. The difference this bit of extra shade has made is noticeable so I'm looking forward to a good batch of berries this year.

In other garden news, we have put down a supply of apricots for the off season. Although I don't have a tree myself, my mate Bill does. He inherited it when he brought his house, and for a supply of apricot jam has kept us in fruit for the last few years.

As well as jam there was enough for 15 blocks of stewed fruit to go with my ice cream.

For this job we use recycled fast food containers (every once in a while we lash out and dig into a bit of Chinese food from the local takeaway). These things are just the job for freezer packs as they stack nicely and don't take up too much room in the freezer. Easy to label and just enough for a meal or two. If we run out of containers we simply turn them out into bags and keep them as ice blocks

Read more...

Shade-houses are cool

Last summer our veggie patch was absolutely smashed by the heat. I did however manage to save a few tomato bushes and a bit of corn with a last minute jury rigged shade-house. I promised myself then that I would be ready for it this year and set to work researching hoop-house design on the nett. This site had a pretty neat looking set-up so I decided that this was the model for me. You will find a full construction manual and parts list there so I won't go into any detail here. I did however make a few minor changes to my hoop-house to accommodate my needs. Rather than run the shade cloth along the length of the structure I have it across and have fastened it with butterfly clips and ropes, tarpaulin fashion. I have done it this way so I can remove it easily in the winter to give me more light. It may even be possible to cover it with some greenhouse plastic and make it into a large cloche.

This shade-house was built to cover my new beds so post spacing was about 2.1 meters. This is not shade cloth width so a little bit of bodgie work was need to cover it. If I was starting from scratch I would make the whole thing cloth width modules, i.e. posts at 1.8 centres and a bed set out similar to the wicking bed layout here.

I have also left the structure relativity open to allow easy entry and exit of pollinators. One end is covered with shade cloth, the other is a bean frame. And as the sides are a simple tie-down set up I can easily work the beds from the outside. As the cloth is lose over the main part of the frame I can if needed slip some extra cloth under it for added shade as required. My hoop-house is 6.5 meters long by 3 meters wide and a tad under 2.4 meters high at the centre. The cut length of my poly-pipe was 6.5 meters and the whole thing was adjusted for evenness when I put the battens on. These battens come in about 6 meter lengths but are easily joined by simply overlapping and pop-riveting. Cost wise, not too bad at about $200 for the whole she-bang but I did get some of the poly free and I had a bit of spare shade-cloth and a few star pickets hanging around. 
So there you have it, one cool shade-house thanks to the folks at Easy-Grow Vegetables, I do like it when people are keen to share neat ideas.

Read more...